Oh it's $15, I thought it was $20. After reading the review I may check it out although there are tons of other releases in February that have my money. I bet this will get a Playstation Plus discount in the future.

I'd feel a lot more positive towards this game if it hadn't been balanced to really push you towards the microtransactions. I mean 1000 levels is ridiculous. It should've either been 'freemium' or just a 15$ game that isn't microtransacted all to hell. You can't have your cake and eat it too in this case, in my opinion. It's not something I want to support, at any rate.

Not to be one of those guys but I did not think this game was this good. Played the PC and XBox beta's, and played the final build on XBox. Every single time I tried to play I had numerous issues with the game from matchmaking failing, to lag during game play.

Aside from those problems the game is just not well balanced, almost every weapon is an instant kill and that is just not my type of game. I also found the 100 pieces of optional DLC spammed onto the marketplace to be in poor taste as well and somewhat off putting.

I feel especially bad to be so down on this game cause I have friends who worked on it so I was really pulling for it.

I like this game, been playing the 360 version but I have had some really bad matchmaking issues. Like every time I look for a game there is about a 1/6 chance I will actually play a game, which is pretty bad. But even with that the game is fun, $15 is the correct price for this imo.

I like the idea of more persistence in my shooters - in character appearance and abilities. Halo and Call of Duty come close to having all that stuff, but they don't go quite far enough for me. In fact, MAG looked like it might have what I like...but anyway, I'll check this out.

On steam it says ive played for about 68 minutes... I've been in 2 matches. THAT'S how busted matchmaking is. Not to mention it terribad frame lag. Lack of a window mode. No Dedicated servers. Balance issues ( a dude sniped me with a shotgun...) Etc

It's a really creative thing layered on top of an average, maybe above average persistent multiplayer shooter. Without the matchmaking and microtransactions this game I feel would be much easier to recommend to most people. Personally I can ignore the microstransactions but I know most won't (which is sad I guess) but the matchmaking is a bitch, especially this close to launch. I also feel that marketing has not really been the best. It's sort of been like "oh this is the game that Monolith has been working on, oh it's not shit? Cool." This all happened within the space of a week from launch to now which is not a marketing strategy that worked in favor of the game.

I think the thing holding me back is that I feel like the aesthetics took the priority over the shooting itself. While plenty fine, the abilities and weapons seem unbalanced and there are clear silhouette issues. More focus on making the shooting feel right would have made all this crazy stuff that much better.

TO BAD IT'S A BROKEN PIECE OF SHIT ON PC. IF THEY SPENT HALF THEIR TIME THEY SPEND MAKING DAY 1 DLC INSTEAD OF OPTIMIZING THE NETCODE AND FUCKING PERFORMANCE IT WOULD BE A WHOLE LOT OF FUN. ARRRGGGGGGGHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

A surprisingly generous score for a game that had a TNT with Monolith employees pitching the game in the site's chat.

So what? They weren't there in the studio with Giant Bomb like a Quick Look EX.

So what? Just because they are not on the couch doesn't mean their bullshit sales pitch is any better. In fact you could say it's worse because they targeted gullible idiots in the chat and the Giantbomb moderators just let it happen.

I can also say I have the pc version and only been able to join 1 game after leaving my machine on for 2 hours in the matchmaking lobby, it's great when you can ACTUALLY play, but the matchmaking issues are pretty inexcusable for a multiplayer ONLY game.

If you're thinking of getting this game for the PC, I'd maybe wait for the devs to release a patch; in its current state on the PC, this game is largely unplayable. Terrible optimization and matchmaking make the whole experience a study in frustration, so again, to anyone on the fence: don't buy this yet.

I'd feel a lot more positive towards this game if it hadn't been balanced to really push you towards the microtransactions. I mean 1000 levels is ridiculous. It should've either been 'freemium' or just a 15$ game that isn't microtransacted all to hell. You can't have your cake and eat it too in this case, in my opinion. It's not something I want to support, at any rate.

I absolutely agree.

@avidwriter said:

Another game that has trouble running on ATI? What is going on? Does nvidia just buy out all these developers by sending them their cards?

nVidia DOES spend a LOT more resources on developer relations. That probably has a lot to do with it.

@zityz said:

On steam it says ive played for about 68 minutes... I've been in 2 matches. THAT'S how busted matchmaking is. Not to mention it terribad frame lag. Lack of a window mode. No Dedicated servers.

What? An online shooter that doesn't have dedicated servers on the PC? If they don't fix that, it has no future at all on the platform.

Hey guys, you might not want to get this for PS3. I've been playing for several hours now and got to level 14, then my game completely wiped my stats. This seems to be happening to a lot of people playing the PS3 version (though some 360 users in the GCI support forums are reporting it happening, too). So you might want to hold off.

You can unlock everything in the game just by playing it--though, given that some items have level requirements into the hundreds, that's going to take you a while. Thankfully, leveling up is the only way to access weapons, mods, and other gameplay-relevant trinkets. But you also have the option to pay real cash money for the cosmetic-only costume pieces, as well as some other doohickeys that are only for looks, and a temporary boost to experience. If the game were holding a bunch of content back behind a required paywall, it'd be a lot easier to get incensed about the number of microtransactions stuffed into a game that's already 15 dollars, but since you can access everything that matters just by unlocking it, it's hard to get too worked up about a set of convenience fees that's easy enough to ignore.

How is it a good thing that you have to grind for hours and hours with restricted options to get access to stuff that makes the game better? How is it fun to not have access to these things? The customization is what's fun, not grinding for it. Grinding is anti-fun.

Making it an arduous task to unlock things and then charging either to unlock, or make the process swifter, is quite sleazy.

Doesn't the microtransactions of this game operate as they would for a F2P game? Or what is the difference there? Why is it ok for this game to cost money?

Hey guys, you might not want to get this for PS3. I've been playing for several hours now and got to level 14, then my game completely wiped my stats. This seems to be happening to a lot of people playing the PS3 version (though isome 360 users in the GCI support forums are reporting it happening, too). So you might want to hold off.

Ah, that happened to me when playing the demo. I thought just because it was a demo, it didn't save my stats. This sheds some light on the matter.

Good review Brad, after playing it a while I like how after more of the individual challenges are unlocked (using different guns/tech) will make & tell you what it unlocks saving the costume points for better things. The only problem I've had with the game is when the match has enough players drop out that they need to put in something to end the match early as playing a capture the flag style of match when the other people leave (to the point where it was me against 3 people) made it tough to even play that match. Game itself is quite fun & looking to see more now that I've unlocked the gang feature in the game.

You can unlock everything in the game just by playing it--though, given that some items have level requirements into the hundreds, that's going to take you a while. Thankfully, leveling up is the only way to access weapons, mods, and other gameplay-relevant trinkets. But you also have the option to pay real cash money for the cosmetic-only costume pieces, as well as some other doohickeys that are only for looks, and a temporary boost to experience. If the game were holding a bunch of content back behind a required paywall, it'd be a lot easier to get incensed about the number of microtransactions stuffed into a game that's already 15 dollars, but since you can access everything that matters just by unlocking it, it's hard to get too worked up about a set of convenience fees that's easy enough to ignore.

How is it a good thing that you have to grind for hours and hours with restricted options to get access to stuff that makes the game better? How is it fun to not have access to these things? The customization is what's fun, not grinding for it. Grinding is anti-fun.

Making it an arduous task to unlock things and then charging either to unlock, or make the process swifter, is quite sleazy.

Doesn't the microtransactions of this game operate as they would for a F2P game? Or what is the difference there? Why is it ok for this game to cost money?

You're missing the point. The microtransactions only apply to cosmetic items and special items like XP boost. Yes, you have to play for a ton of hours to unlock everything, but that's also every other other persistent online shooter under the sun. And besides, considering you're more or less allowed to unlock whatever weapon or mod you want when you get an unlock key, you can more or less make your perfect class your first time unlocking the items.

You can unlock everything in the game just by playing it--though, given that some items have level requirements into the hundreds, that's going to take you a while. Thankfully, leveling up is the only way to access weapons, mods, and other gameplay-relevant trinkets. But you also have the option to pay real cash money for the cosmetic-only costume pieces, as well as some other doohickeys that are only for looks, and a temporary boost to experience. If the game were holding a bunch of content back behind a required paywall, it'd be a lot easier to get incensed about the number of microtransactions stuffed into a game that's already 15 dollars, but since you can access everything that matters just by unlocking it, it's hard to get too worked up about a set of convenience fees that's easy enough to ignore.

How is it a good thing that you have to grind for hours and hours with restricted options to get access to stuff that makes the game better? How is it fun to not have access to these things? The customization is what's fun, not grinding for it. Grinding is anti-fun.

Making it an arduous task to unlock things and then charging either to unlock, or make the process swifter, is quite sleazy.

Doesn't the microtransactions of this game operate as they would for a F2P game? Or what is the difference there? Why is it ok for this game to cost money?

Video game reviewers love grinding, for whatever reason. Collecting random shit, doing side quests, playing MMOs, it's all they talk about. Don't ask me why. You'd think they would have less time to spend on that shit than regular people.